Pilot injured in on-ground crash at Modesto Airport

A pilot suffered a badly broken wrist when an apparent malfunction while he was taxiing sent his two-seat propeller plane into a wall at the Modesto Airport on Monday afternoon, a witness said. The pilot was transported to a local hospital for treatment of minor injuries, a Modesto fire official said.

The crash – of a 3X LS Navigator 600 – happened shortly before 2 p.m. Mike Johnson of Soni Aviation said he was at his desk, facing the tarmac, when he saw Karl Inderbitzin’s small plane zip in front of Hangar 2S. He heard the crash and ran out to check on his friend.

“He was going to get fuel ... when the engine started racing,” Johnson said. “Three seconds later, he was on the wall. He barely had time to think. He hit hard enough to break the tail, and the tail didn’t even hit anything.”

Johnson said he and business partner Baldev Singh Bamahra helped Inderbitzin get out of the aircraft as fuel was leaking from it. The pilot suffered a broken wrist that had his hand “just hanging there” limp, Johnson said. He also suffered a hard hit to the head. “He’s going to have a big shiner,” Johnson said.

He talked with Inderbitzin but said the pilot was shaken because of what had just happened. “You would expect him to be incoherent,” Johnson said. “He said, essentially, he didn’t know what happened.” The malfunction and crash occurred within a matter of perhaps four seconds, Johnson said.

He credited Inderbitzin with being able to take the out-of-control craft into the wall. “If it had been another airplane, or a hangar, there would have been a fire,” Johnson said.

The nose-first crash into the wall sheared off the propeller blades and buckled the aircraft. The plane came to rest with one wheel up on a bench it broke, but the wall – in front of a restroom building between Hangars 1S and 2S – appeared to have little damage.

This story was originally published June 22, 2015 at 4:14 PM with the headline "Pilot injured in on-ground crash at Modesto Airport."